As punishment for disrupting class, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are sentenced to join a traveling kids' choir called "Getting Gay with Kids," headed by a Granola Girl choir teacher named Miss Stevens (voiced by Jennifer Aniston).
"Rainforest Schmainforest" contains the following examples:
- Accidental Misnaming: Throughout the episode, Kelly said Kenny's name wrong numerous times, calling him Johnny, Benny, Larry, and Lenny. It is implied she has trouble understanding Kenny's muffled speech.
- Apathetic Citizens: Kyle and Stan are so used to Kenny being dead and gone that they just say their usual catchphrasesnote and are completely baffled when Kelly tells them to help Kenny. Kelly does CPR and manages to revive Kenny, something Stan and Kyle never tried.
- Artistic License – Geography: Parodied with the choir bus route. The map has it going southwest, crossing the Mexican border around Mexicali and then running down the Baja California peninsula. From there, it crosses the Gulf of California, drives through mainland Mexico, goes across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatán Peninsula, and zigzags the rest of the way to San José. Going across the Gulf of California can be forgiven since there are ferries from La Paz, but there is no way a bus would be able to drive into the Gulf of Mexico. On top of that, even the most direct route from Colorado to Costa Rica would take at least a week to drive.
- Big Damn Heroes: The demolition team, thanks to Cartman.
- Big "NO!": Stan when his mother forces him on the choir bus.
- Blatant Lies: Craig flips off Mr. Mackey, then denies it when he's called on it.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: Happens to Kenny, but he, fortunately, gets revived by Kelly.
- Break the Haughty: Miss Stevens starts off the episode as a pompous Granola Girl. She changes her mind about the environment after she and the kids get to experience what the rainforest is really like.
- Callousness Towards Emergency: Stan and Kyle refuse to help Kenny when he gets zapped by lightning. Fortunately for Kenny, Kelly manages to resuscitate him via cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
- Character Development: Inverted: when Miss Stevens meets Cartman and says that she knows that he doesn't care about other cultures, she vows to change his mind. Through the course of the story, it's Miss Stevens who changes her attitude about the rainforest.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Miss Stevens after the humanoid tribe captures her and preps her to be sacrificed to a giantnote .
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Kelly is able to resuscitate Kenny quickly with some pretty rudimentary mouth-to-mouth and chest-pounding. It's doubly impressive considering she's a 9-year-old kid.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The snake devours the tour guide whole, kills him and shits him out dead in less than a minute.
- Deconstructive Parody: Played for Laughs. The episode hilariously subverts the usual route of "protect the rainforest" morals by having the kids and guides encounter over-the-top yet rudimentarily realistic rainforest dangers (deadly flora and fauna, anti-government militia groups engaged in a shoot-out, and a tribe who misidentifies them as threats), nearly killing themselves in the process. The ending maintains its comedic tone by having the kids tell the rainforest activists to "Go fuck themselves" and completely deviate from their message by telling them to decimate the rainforest.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Kenny is killed by a bolt of lightning from nowhere. Lampshaded when Stan and Kyle do the usual "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" routine and Kelly asks who "they" are.
- Disney Death: In a rare Pet the Dog moment for Kenny, he is struck by lightning and Stan and Kyle say their usual catchphrases, but Kelly resuscitates him and they are an Official Couple by the end.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: For all his obnoxiousness throughout the episode, Cartman still goes out of his way to save the kids choir at the end and doesn't make a big deal out of it.
- Exposed to the Elements: Inverted, the kids would've died from heat exhaustion (not just Kenny) from wearing all that winter gear.
- Flipping the Bird: As mentioned below, Craig flips off Mr. Mackey and then the boys when they enter. Not even Cartman likes being flipped off.Cartman: Hey, don't flip me off, you son of a bitch!
- Green Aesop: Subverted. It is argued that the rain forest is not a pleasant place.Stan: All we ever heard growing up was "save the rainforest. The rainforest is fragile".
Kyle: Yeah, fragile my ass! - Have a Gay Old Time: "Getting Gay With Kids" has a name that shows how woefully out of touch the environmentalists are with the world around them. This doesn't go unnoticed:"We are not getting gay with any kids."
- Hungry Jungle: Instead of being a pleasant tropical paradise filled with pretty flowers, the rainforest is actually a horrible place filled with dangerous animals, toxic plants, terrible weather conditions, savage tribes, and anti-government terrorists.
- Hypocritical Humor: Mr. Garrison grows increasingly angrier with the boys' rude and smartass comments toward the choir, but he outright insulted it right at the beginning, calling it stupid and lame. His note to Mr. Mackey even reflects his hypocrisy.Mr. Mackey: Now let's see, what did Mr. Garrison send you in here for? (reading the note) "The boys were being rude while a choir teacher was giving some stupid presentation."
- It's All About Me: Miss Stevens changes her opinion on the environment purely because of how harsh it was to an outsider like her, ignoring the fact that the rainforest is home to countless organisms that can't thrive anywhere else.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Kyle is pissed off by Cartman's repeated proclamations of Jews having no rhythm, but after seeing how poor his choreography is in the dance, Stan says that Kyle may indeed have no rhythm.
- Everyone is forced to concede that Cartman was right about the rainforest being a terrible place.
- Lack of Empathy: Kelly calls out Stan and Kyle's usual apathy to Kenny dying, not even trying to prevent it.Kelly: Well don't just stand there! Help him!
Stan: *confused* Help? Him? - Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After Stan and Kyle say their catchphrase, Kelly asks "who's they?" Ironically, the catchphrase, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny"/"You bastards" is always a 4th wall break as it was revealed the line is aimed at Trey Parker and Matt Stone, as technically THEY killed Kenny.
- Long-Distance Relationship: Kelly is initially reluctant to get attached to Kenny since they live in different states, but after all they endure, they become an Official Couple by the end after surviving the rainforest's many dangers. She is mentioned in passing in "Spontaneous Combustion".
- Love at First Sight: Kenny falls for Kelly the second he sees her. Lucky for him, the feeling ends up being very mutual.
- Naïve Animal Lover: A Costa Rican tour guide reassures a frightened Stan that coral snakes are more scared of humans than we are of them — just before the snake attacks him, swallows him whole, and poops him out in a matter of seconds.Mrs. Stevens: "Jesus Christ, is he dead?!"
Kyle: My guess would be yes. - Nature Is Not Nice: The kids and their teacher find this out the hard way.
- Never My Fault: Miss Stevens endangers herself and a group of children; the conclusion she draws is that the environment should pay for her mistake.
- No Indoor Voice: Mr. Garrison devolves into this during the choir presentation as the boys insult it (and each other in Eric and Kyle's case).Mr. Garrison: KYLE BROFLOFSKI, YOU WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!! ERIC CARTMAN, YOU BE NICE TO PEOPLE!! STAN MARSH, YOU MIND YOUR MANNERS!! KENNY MCCORMICK, YOU PAY ATTENTION!!
- Pet the Dog:
- At the beginning of the episode, Cartman smiles when Stan and Kyle laugh. First from Kenny and eventually Cartman.
- Cartman shows genuine concern for Miss Stevens' safety despite being at each other's throats the entire episode.
- The militia leader hated "Getting Gay With Kids" for being "white Americans", but he still risks his life to protect them during a shootout and tells them to save themselves.
- Precision F-Strike: Kyle lets one out to Cartman when the latter tells the former that Jewish people don’t have any rhythm.
- Rage Breaking Point: Miss Stevens attempts to keep her pro-activist attitude in spite all of the hell she and the choir class go through while lost in the rainforest, even though it's clear she's becoming more and more distressed and showing signs of snapping, such as when Cartman leaves the group. After the Yanagapa tribe attempts to present her to their giant, she loses it, and begins screaming "fuck the rainforest!" over and over.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Ms. Stevens gets one from the Marxist militia leader, who rants about meddlesome Americans carelessly consuming a lot of the world's resources even while exhorting local people like his militia to save the rain forest.
- The new lyrics to the choir's song are this to the audience, telling them that they don't know anything about the rainforest and they only fight for causes like environmentalism because it makes them look good.
- Running Gag:
- Kelly repeatedly failing to call Kenny by his proper name due to him being The Unintelligible.
- Cartman smacking things in the rainforest with a stick to assert his authority until the snake that kills the tour guide gets pissed off at him and chases him away.
- Craig's own long-running gag of flipping people off starts in this episode.
- Running Gagged: Cartman smacking animals come to a stop after the coral snake chases him.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Cartman eventually does this and winds up at a logging camp, where he tells the workers that he's lost and needs food... and gets it!Cartman: (after Ms. Stevens is attacked by a monkey) This is bullcrap, I am not following this stupid hippie around anymore!Ms. Stevens: Eric, where are you going?Cartman: I'm going this way!Ms. Stevens: Young man, I am the adult here, and I say you go this way!Cartman: Look, you can stay over nyah, but I'm going over nyah!Ms. Stevens: Young man, I have had it!Cartman: Nononono! You nyah, me nyah! Screw you guys, I'ma goin' home.
- Special Guest: Jennifer Aniston as Miss Stevens is one of the rare examples in South Park where a guest star is given a prominent role.
- Spoof Aesop: The episode inverts and pokes fun of the usual Green Aesops that go hand in hand with rainforests in media, and describes it as a horrible thing that must be destroyed."Each year, the Rainforest is responsible for over three thousand deaths from accidents, attacks or illnesses. There are over seven hundred things in the Rainforest that cause cancer. Join the fight now and help stop the Rainforest before it's too late."
- Sucks at Dancing: Kyle can't keep up with the other kids' choreography during the choir performance, which upsets him since not having rhythm is a Jewish stereotype.
- Suddenly Shouting: On the bus,when Kenny tells Kelly his name, she doesn’t get it right. Kenny raises his muffled voice when Kelly gets it wrong a third time.
- When the choir arrives at Costa Rica:
Cartman: Well, why the hell don’t they get jobs? (out the window) Aye! Why don’t you people quit slacking off and get a job, what’s wrong with you! Go to college! - They Killed Kenny Again: Subverted. Kenny gets struck by lightning, but Kelly manages to resuscitate him, much to Kyle and Stan's surprise.
- This Is Gonna Suck: While on the bus to Costa Rica, Cartman says,”The nightmare begins". Earlier in the episode when he gets on the bus, Cartman also says "This is going to suck donkey balls".
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Kenny got it pretty good for an early season episode. He was the only one of the four boys who actually wanted to go with the choir, scored a girlfriend, and actually survived the episode.
- Toilet Humour: When Ms. Stevens says “How are we all doing?!”, Cartman farts. Mr. Garrison tells him to say “excuse me”.
- Unfortunate Names: "Getting Gay With Kids", especially when after a performance, the response to that was, "We're not getting gay with no kids."
- Unreliable Illustrator: During the first and last "Getting Gay With Kids" choir performance, Heidi Turner's hair color changes from black to her modern dull brown hair.
- Unishment: While Mr. Mackey forcing the boys to join the choir was intended to be a punishment for them, Kenny is actually overjoyed because it gives him the opportunity to interact with Kelly.
- Very Special Episode: Parodied. The boys are forced to join a choir class whose teacher is using them to spread the message of saving rainforests. When the group gets lost in a rainforest and is nearly killed by everything but the kitchen sink, the teacher snaps and screams, "That's it! FUCK rainforests!", and proceeds to change their message to destroy them rather than save them. The whole thing caps off with a PSA urging viewers to "join the fight to destroy all rainforests before it's too late." While the anti-environmentalist message may make viewers angry or upset, you have to admire the balls it took just to say that, when most other shows would go the pro-environmentalism route.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Act One ended with Kyle realizing that Cartman may be right about Jewish people not having any rhythm, setting up for a possible subplot in Act Two. However, this is never mentioned again and Kyle is still dancing woefully out of sync with everyone else at the end. Supplemental materialsnote reveal Kyle was meant to come to terms with his problems (and berate Kenny at the same time) during their time spent in the rainforest. Obviously, the scene itself was taken out for the final cut, thereby leaving a mild Plot Hole.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: This episode reveals that Stan is afraid of snakes.
- Word, Schmord!: It's right there in the episode title.
